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How to keep a toddler in the bed? (physically, while sleeping)

I find my two-year-old asleep in her floor almost every morning. She has a toddler bed and she LOVES her bed, but she can't seem to stay in it! I have even found her halfway UNDER the bed - sound asleep! I cannot figure out for the life of me how/why this happens. I mean, the thing has rails running half the length of the bed!
Crib is not an option. A. It reinforces 'baby' and may cause regression in other areas. B. It would confuse the heck out of her. C. We took her out of the crib because she was climbing out and I didn't want her to get hurt (this was about seven months ago).
Our bed is out of the question as well - I get the mess beat of me if she sleeps in our bed (the child is like a windmill). I have had friends tell me not to worry about it, but our house gets a bit drafty and she is like a little ice cube in the morning, even in her fleece jammies!
Help!

when we switched our daughter, I kept finding her like that for about a month or 2... she was getting up in the night, playing and then falling back asleep. I even caught her with the camera, half in the bed like she fell asleep falling into it LOL

don't worry about it, she'll either decide she wants to stay in bed because it's softer than the floor, or maybe she likes the floor ;) IDK
nothing to stress over though.

Answer by
Anonymous
at 12:37 AM on Jan. 11, 2010

You can put an extra side rail on her bed. They have mesh sided ones that you can buy at walmart.
It might be that your daughter sleep walks and crawls out of bed in her sleep. You could try observing her one night and see if that is the case.

I think she might just like the floor... or maybe she moves to the bed because the bed gets to hot.. as long as you check on her and maybe put a blanket on her at night if she's on the floor she should be fine.. .might just be a phase

When I see "toddler bed" I'm assuming you are talking about one of those beds that is small (a crib matress will pretty much fit it) but isn't a crib because it doesn't have sides? If this is the case then you might need to get her a twin bed. You said "she is like a windmill" If I'm right about the bed, then what's prob happening is she's hitting the sides, or the wall (if it's by one) or almost ending up out of it during sleep so she is choosing the floor because she has more room. I had to put my oldest in a twin bed just after he turned 2 because of something very similar. He moved to much in his sleep for his toddler bed to be comfortable.

I would go in there after she's been asleep for a while and put her back in her bed. Maybe she'll finally realize when she wakes up in her bed how much better it is than the floor. Put some toys in her bed before she goes to sleep to maybe keep her there. There's a light-up turtle that makes stars show up on the ceiling that's really cool. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BNQC58/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=4270811027&ref=pd_sl_75x1zvqi1c_e